Did Not Our Heart Burn Within Us?

This teacher's guide and classroom manual for teenage confirmation in the Episcopal Church was written for the lay person who:

      Has never taught before, and especially never taught teenagers,

      Knows little about the Bible,

      Knows just as little about Episcopal Church tradition, and

      Knows next to nothing about theology.

In short, this manual is designed to help lay people step into the role of confirmation instructor, regardless of level of experience, and succeed!

This is a course targeted at teenagers, though equally applicable to adults, preparing for confirmation in the Episcopal Church. Unlike many other courses, however, this course teaches fundamental concepts through Scripture so that confirmands understand the basis of their belief. Our Catechism asks and answers an important question:

Q. Where may we find what Christians believe about Christ?

A. What Christians believe about Christ is found in the Scriptures and summed up in the creeds.

Therefore, this course takes the confirmands through the Scriptures and the creeds to help them find out more about Jesus. In so doing, the course also covers the most important parts of the Catechism, the Episcopal Church's Outline of the Faith.

Like the Catechism, the course uses a series of questions and answers to draw understanding out of the confirmands, similar to the Socratic Method used in teaching. The questions and answers are written out for the instructor to provide a clear pathway to the end objective in each classroom session, so that even a novice teacher can utilize this effective teaching technique.

The course is packed with material that allows the instructor to move through numerous subtopics under each heading, which, combined with the rapid-fire questions scripted out in this instructor's manual, will hold the attention of most any restless teenager! Most importantly, this course is the heartfelt compilation of a decade of teaching, and the numerous prayers that went along with that teaching.